Have you ever thought about the meaning of a name you spotted in Pterry's books? I bet you have. Some of them are obvious (Bloody Stupid Johnson), some mean nothing (Boris) but there are loads of really interesing cases.

Let me start with my favourite: Sto Lat. "Sto lat" is a Polish song. It means "100 years" and is sung to wish someone 100 years of life for his/her birthday. Meanly joyful unless you're 99.

Do you remember any names that may have any interesting meaning, reference or background?

I'll give you more examples later.

“It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing.”

Not a name meaning but I went to an event run by Epic Games studio. Their game engine is called the Unreal engine and the event was called Unreal University. I only kept telling people I was going to Unseen University.

Tonyblack wrote:Well I always thought that Sto Plains was like 'stop lanes' - those escape lanes you sometimes get on a very steep downward hill.

I know I've said before that Llamedos is 'sod em all' spelled backwards. This is a reference to the fictional town in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood; Llareggub - which is 'bugger all' backwards.

Koom Valley - the Welsh word for a valley is cwm, which is pronounced koom.

In Pyramids, one of the bullies in the Assassin's Guild is called Flimoe. In Tom Brown's Schooldays, there's a bully named Speedicut. Fly-mo and Speedicut are both brands of lawnmower.

Nice, especially those spelled backwards.

More from me:

Willie Hobson, a second hand horse dealer from "Going Postal" may be a reference to a real person called Thomas Hobson - a carrier, delivering mail between Cambridge and London and renting horses in 16th and 17th century.

Elizabeth Southerns, alias Demdike, died in Lancaster Gaol awaiting trial, but was nevertheless considered to be a witch on the basis of evidence already given. Jennet Preston, who lived just over the Lancashire border, was tried in Yorkshire and hanged at York in 1612. Finally, Magaret Pearson was found guilty of witchcraft at Lancaster, but not murder, and received a sentance of one years imprisonment.

I'm thinking Agnes Nitt is based on Alice Nutter.

I'm sure you've all worked out the joke behind Dil the embalmer in Pyramids. Dill pickles.